Campervan Trip 4 Rockhampton

Now travelling towards the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast and decided to split the journey midway with a stopover in Rockhampton. On the way we visited a little coastal town called Tannum and its sister village Boyne Island. Bit undecided about a swim before a late brunch but minds made up when we saw the signs warning of; Strong Currents, Submerged Objects, Stingers and Crocodiles!. It looked lovely but agreed to keep our distance and instead explored the fabulous millennium esplanade with its many picnic areas. Moved off through Gladstone and managed to pass Australia's largest power station, an aluminium processing plant and a cement factory. Not the most attractive of towns but Tom absolutely delighted!

Arrived in Rockhampton which is known as the beef capital of Australia and one of its highlights is its 6 statues of bulls! As we passed through we counted 5 in all - Tom (OCD mode) so disappointed that we could not get a full deck. Decided to have a BBQ and went to get the chairs and table out to find that the storage lock had broken and the table and water hose are somewhere on the road between Hervey Bay and Rockhampton, oops !!!.

Unfortunately Rockhampton and its surrounding areas suffered quite badly from the recent cyclone (whilst we were in NZ) and it is apparent that they are still struggling to recover. The campsite still bore some evidence of the damage with many trees uprooted and clearly lots of work still ongoing to clear the debris.

Another long journey tomorrow as we move on up the east coast to Airlie Beach, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and Whitsunday Islands so Tom cooked up a fab BBQ and early night for us.

It seems the further north we go the harder it is to get a good signal, not sure if it is a result of the cyclones or poor infrastructure, very frustrating and Sue sad and disappointed at not being able to keep in touch!!